Even shaving 1 gram off a water bottle would eliminate 160 million pounds of material per year, assuming consumption of 200 million bottles per day, says Thierry Marchal, Ansys’ director of industry marketing for consumer goods.Īltair of Troy, Michigan, has a lead over its rivals in a particularly interesting field called topology optimisation, according to research firm CIMdata. For each hundred pounds trimmed of a car, drivers could save about 1 percent to 2 percent on fuel economy, which could add up to billions of dollars nationally, according to the US Department of Energy. Unseen by drivers and frequent fliers, the straight angles and solid forms under the skins of autos and airliners have been replaced over the past several years by funky-looking ribs that are lighter and stronger than the original.
The biggest computer-aided engineering software firms, Ansys, Dassault Systèmes and LMS International, a Siemens subsidiary, have enjoyed double-digit revenue growth in recent years as large customers snap up their pricey suites of simulation and material analysis software. And the reduction in outer material gives the building an excellent chance of going up faster and for less money.Īdapting nature’s forms to human problems, a trend called biomimicry, is an idea that has taken root at engineering-intensive firms such as Ford, General Motors, Boeing and Airbus, all of them hungry buyers of technology to improve the shapes of the machines and structures they build. Yet, when he runs a wind-flow analysis on the simulation, the building’s organic form wicks away stiff breezes far more efficiently than a rectilinear structure. Its irregular lattice leaves room for giant, undulating pools of window glass. In a series of keystrokes, the architectural engineering PhD, now a business development manager at software firm Altair, thins out the blocky outer shell of a new skyscraper into a willowy exoskeleton that would stand out even among the gaudier designs in the Dubai skyline.
The future of architecture is evolving before my eyes on the laptop of Luca Frattari. Altair’s software helped Airbus figure out how to shed more than 1,000 pounds from the wings by redesigning the ribs to have the same strength with less material
Altair CEO James Scapa with one of the 13 structural ‘ribs’ that fit inside the wings of an Airbus A380.
0 kommentar(er)
